The Silent Stars
by Celtic Knot
Summary: One-shot, early S9. A newly human Castiel looks up for the first time. Cross-posted on AO3.


**The Silent Stars**

Castiel awoke with a start, gasping.

Being human was proving to be far more difficult than he'd anticipated. The needs for food and other bodily necessities were constant interruptions, making it difficult to focus on anything for any length of time. Shelter from the elements had also proved critical, and oh, how he missed his wings. But most problematic was the irresistible urge to sleep. More specifically, the dreams.

He had always known, of course, that humans needed to sleep several hours a day. He knew that they often dreamed. But he had not by any means been prepared for the intensity of the experience.

Dreams, as it turned out, were more than just the fleeting mental images he'd always assumed them to be. They could feel as real as waking life, which was… unsettling, to say the least. The first time it had happened, he'd dreamt of opening the portal to Purgatory, and had awakened terrified that the Leviathans were back inside him, compelling him to commit more unspeakable crimes and clamoring for release. Even after he'd realized it was all in his imagination, his hands had shaken uncontrollably for hours.

And there was no controlling what dreams would come, either. What seemed like moments ago, the gentle motion of the bus he was riding had lulled him to sleep, only to make him relive the bite of Metatron's blade slicing into his throat, the agony of having his grace ripped out of the wound, and the terrible, crushing emptiness it left behind.

He nearly wept as he caught his breath.

"Hey. You okay?"

For the first time, he noticed a young woman in the seat next to him. There was a book open in her lap, and he could hear faint music coming from the headphones that hung around her neck where she had slipped them off her ears. She was looking at him with concern.

Castiel swallowed hard and nodded. "Yeah. I'm fine," he croaked. It was a lie, of course, but how could she ever understand? He scrubbed both hands down his face, trying to shake off the last lingering remnants of the dream. Blessedly, mercifully, they were fading fast.

The girl relaxed a little, but closed her book. "I didn't wake you, did I? No offense, but you kinda look like you need the rest."

"I don't know. I was having a…" What was the word? "…nightmare. So I assure you, I'd much rather be awake." He managed a weak smile.

Her answering smile was warm as she stuck out her hand. "Glad I could help, then. My name's Nicki."

Castiel stared at her blankly for a moment before he remembered what to do. Human social and cultural norms had been difficult enough to keep track of when he'd had an angelic mind; now that he was stuck with a human brain, it took much longer to process. But finally, it dawned on him what he was supposed to do, and he shook her proffered hand. "I'm Castiel." He wondered if he should have given an alias.

Probably. Too late now.

Nicki raised her eyebrows. "Castiel, huh? Now there's a name you don't hear every day. It's cool."

He shrugged. "Well, the actual name my Father chose for me is in Enochian, and difficult for humans to pronounce," he replied. "'Castiel' is really just the most… adequate translation."

"Enochian?" Nicki blinked, confusion furrowing her brow. "What's that, some kind of ancient dead language? Your dad a history buff?"

Castiel tipped his head noncommittally. "I suppose you could say that."

A silence fell between them, and Castiel found his gaze drawn to the window next to him. It occurred to him that he must have slept longer than he'd thought—it had been barely sundown in the city when he'd dozed off, but it was now full dark, and the lights of civilization outside had given way to open fields and empty sky.

No, not empty. The darkness overhead glittered with countless stars, each more brilliant than the last, twinkling as though laughing for sheer joy. They shone down in great clusters and scatterings, fairly begging the mind to connect them into shapes and sigils. And the great arc of the galactic disc, seen edge-on as it was from this remote little corner, leapt triumphantly from the horizon in a trail of blazing glory. It was perhaps the most beautiful thing Castiel had ever seen outside of Heaven itself. He craned his neck to take in as much as he possibly could.

Apparently, though, this was not a normal thing for humans to do on buses, and he was interrupted by Nicki's voice asking him, "What are you looking at?"

"The stars." Castiel wrenched his eyes from the shimmering beauty above and turned to look at his happenstance companion, then stared down at his own hands. "I spent so much time looking down, just watching all the creatures that live on the surface of this planet," he murmured, as much to himself as to her. "It was all so endlessly fascinating. Now that I'm down here in it, though… well, it's… not exactly what I expected." He turned his gaze back to the night sky. "But I just now realized that, in all this time, I've never paid much attention to the stars. They are… spectacular."

Nicki frowned at him—he could see her reflection in the glass, superimposed over the constellations like a painted goddess. "Dude," she said after a moment's silence, "are you high?"

The baffling question broke over his reverie like a splash of ice water, tearing his attention away from the firmament once more. Castiel stared at her, puzzled by what had to be a figure of speech. He was fairly certain he'd heard Sam or Dean use it before, but he couldn't recall quite what it meant. "I'm… no further off the ground than you are, if that's what you mean," he said slowly.

The girl laughed at that, shaking her head. "No, weirdo. _High._ You know, stoned. Blitzed. Wasted." She raised her eyebrows in surprise at his continued incomprehension. "You been doin' drugs, man?"

 _I'm not a man,_ Castiel thought reflexively, and almost said as much before the reality of his situation struck him once more with all its implacable weight. He certainly was now. So instead, he simply said, "No." Then, without truly knowing why, he added softly, "I guess I'm just a little bit… lost."

Nicki leaned closer to see out the window as well, and Castiel could smell her perfume, a floral, almost spicy scent that stirred something unfamiliar in him. "Well, people used to navigate by the stars, you know," she said. "Especially at sea, when there's nothing but water in every direction, all the way out to the horizon. Looking down, there was no way to know what direction they were going. But the stars would always lead them home." She pointed to a loose group of bright stars hanging low over the landscape. "You see that big spoon-shaped constellation there?"

Curious as to where this was going, Castiel nodded.

"That's the Big Dipper. Well, technically, it's called Ursa Major, the Great Bear, but most people just call it the Big Dipper. So anyway, those two stars the front of the bowl—draw a line between them."

Obediently, Castiel traced a path from one star to the other with his finger.

Nicki giggled. "In your mind, weirdo."

"Oh."

"Now, follow that line up until you hit another star."

It wasn't far, leading him to a fainter pinprick of light at the end of a smaller spoon shape. "There, I see it. At the end of the… Little Dipper?"

"Bingo," Nicki said, which Castiel took to mean he'd guessed correctly. "That's Polaris, the North Star. If you can find that, you can orient yourself. Figure out which direction you're going." She paused, staring at him thoughtfully, then shrugged. "Though somehow, I don't think that's the kind of 'lost' you were talking about."

"It isn't, exactly, but… I think it helped anyway." That was the truth. Nicki's little lesson in navigation had changed nothing about his situation, but something about their conversation just made him… feel better. As though perhaps not all hope was lost. He looked into her eyes and said with all sincerity, "Thank you, Nicki."

Nicki blushed and giggled, a reaction Castiel found at once baffling and endearing. "Any time, Castiel." Her face fell as the bus lurched to a halt. "Oh… this is my stop. Here." She pulled a pen and a scrap of paper out of her pocket and scribbled something on it, then handed it to him. "Call me, okay?"

"Okay."

Nicki turned back and winked at him as she disappeared into the night.

Castiel unfolded the note in his hand, and was surprised to find not a phone number, but a message—one that sent a shiver up his spine. In graceful, flowing script, it read, _Take care, brother. Not all who fell will forgive._


End file.
